Victory
by Sir Chris
Summary: Life can be cruel, and the good guy does not always win.


A/N: Hello, a couple of things to note about this. I wrote this very quickly because I felt the need to write something that had more conflict than my next chapter of Yellow Flash, which I am finally getting some work on, and which will very likely be posted before this weekend is through. With this story I took one of my favorite characters to write, Madara, and introduced him to a scenario he will literally never know in my novel-length adventure: Winning. Boy, do I ever have plans to abuse that sadistic bastard in my other story. In this, however, Madara's goals are fulfilled and he speaks to the last person in his way in a way I could imagine Madara would.

**Victory**

It was getting harder and harder to breathe, and it was little wonder given the hole now found in the man's chest. Life, it seemed, had chosen to be a little crueler than the young man's body could handle. The young man was named Naruto, and he laid upon a rock in the middle of a land distant from his home of Konoha, alone and dying. His friends had abandoned him in favor of the sweet merciful call of death years ago and, for that matter, so had his enemies; all save for one. That one was peering down at him with a curious look in his eyes and a stick in his hand.

"Hey, Naruto-kun, can you get up?" The man poked Naruto at the edge of his chest wound with the stick and Naruto screamed in agony as the wood tore into his flesh. Naruto struggled to knock the stick away but could not muster the feeling, much less the strength, to move his arm. The man's face split into a grin as he gently removed the stick and tossed it over his shoulder.

"Never say that Uchiha Madara was unkind to you in your last moments alive, Naruto." The last of the Uchiha sat on his ass and extended one of his legs forward, resting his head on the other that was bent at the knee, staring pensively at Naruto. The subject of Madara's attention was not at all in his right mind, his body fevering badly, trying desperately to fight off death with everything it could muster and failing miserably. Madara, a man who had succeeded many years ago at ripping the Kyuubi from Naruto, had been surprised when the process had not killed the boy. In fact, it had only seemed to piss him off. Madara had made many mistakes in his life, and underestimating the raw power that flowed through Naruto, Kyuubi or no, had been among the height of his erroneous ways. He had forgotten what man had begotten this boy, the damnable Namikaze Minato. Yet, even though Naruto had ruined plan after plan, destroyed ally after ally, in the end his strength, and above that his cunning, had won the battle. He would have forever to shape this world in his own image, to rule over it as the strongest. He looked down at the stump that was once his left arm and let out a sigh of annoyance. That particular wound would take time to fix; crafting genuine human flesh from spare parts had never been his specialty. After the severely bad things that Naruto had done to his treacherous partner in crime, Kabuto, there weren't many people in the world, if any, who had that level of expertise about the human body.

"You have caused me a lot of trouble young man, I have to wonder how your parents could have taught you such bad manners. Oh, right, I made sure that they were killed and so you never got to know them. My bad." Madara reared back his head and cackled, unable to contain his mirth any longer. The Uchiha laughed for minutes, uncaring about the paling man in front of him. Naruto was losing color in his face as the blood poured out of him, his grunts of pain increasing as he could no longer contain the agony that was overwhelming his senses. Finally, a moan of pain was loud enough that Madara heard it over his own laughter and he stopped abruptly and looked down at Naruto.

"Oh, of course, you must be in so much pain, unable to talk, unable to move, knowing that a decade of effort trying to fight the inevitable has been wasted. I wonder, my last rival, how many graves did you swear upon that their deaths would not be in vain? That I would be brought in for my crimes, dead or alive? How passionate were your eyes then, were they the burning frost as they are now, my precious Naruto-kun? I understand, Naruto, I truly do. You fought your hardest, perhaps if it is possible you fought beyond that. It is commendable, you pushed the greatest shinobi to have ever lived to his absolute limits, you made me sacrifice an arm to win our battle. Which reminds me…" Madara shifted his position quickly, pulling out a shortsword. In one swift and brutal motion Naruto's left arm had been cut off. Before blood could pour out of the terrible wound Madara breathed a fireball into his shoulder, causing Naruto to scream and his eyes to roll back, his whole body being enthralled by the pain.

"Well, that takes care of my arm problem," Madara gently placed the arm next to him before turning back to Naruto," Ah right, back to your failure. As I was saying, you did your best, and I am sure when you meet your many loved ones in the afterlife they will comfort you with their pity and their understanding. In many ways, I am doing you a great service, I think. Now you all get to be united forever, or some nonsense like that. I don't understand if you idiots believed that all along why you didn't just let me slaughter you all at once, would have saved both parties a whole lot of trouble." Madara sighed and looked down at his defeated enemy to notice that his eyes had closed, although the fitful expression had not left his face, indication Naruto hadn't quite died yet. Madara's face twisted into a scowl as he balled his remaining hand into a fist and punched Naruto as hard as he could squarely in his chest, where he was heavily wounded.

"Bastard!" Naruto bit out, the great pain he was in evidenced in his strained voice.

"My my, Naruto-kun, that is most impressive. I thought you would be completely unable to speak to me, but here you are proving that I have once again underestimated you. Although, you have been awfully quiet this entire time, nothing to say to an old friend?" Madara smiled wickedly down at his fallen foe. Naruto's face scrunched up in effort, and after a moment he spoke.

"There's no need for Konoha's Hokage to deal with the likes of you… ha…ha…just keep talking, you seem to enjoy yourself." Naruto smiled at his own joke, recalling when he had said something similar to Pain when he was invading Konoha all of those years ago. Madara's eyes narrowed in fury as he plunged his hand back into Naruto. This time, however, no scream escaped from Naruto's mouth and his body did not tense. Madara withdrew his hand and inspected Naruto closer. His face was pale, even moreso than it had been previously. His chest had stopped moving, and a smile graced his lips. Madara looked into Naruto's eyes and saw them lifeless, no light reflecting out of them any longer. In a gesture too humane to be in character, Madara closed Naruto's eyes and stood up, dusting off his robes as he did so.

"And so the war ends. The Uchiha stand above all, as it should be." Madara smiled effortlessly as he picked up Naruto's left arm and began to walk away.

A few moments later Madara appeared once again and kicked the side of Naruto's head as hard as he could, causing the lifeless body to shamble off the rock and collapse into a heap. Madara grinned, his Sharingan spinning to mirror the madness in his mind.

"There, now it is over."

The world was his.


End file.
